Pills? or just a good Diet? - which is better?
Quote:
> Over the past few years,I had built up to 20 pills a day -- vitamins, then
> gingko, chlorophyl, essential fatty acids, "brain chemicals" ...
> Within the last few weeks, I ran across 2 people with advance degrees in
> nutrition who said, "eat well and don't pop pills..." Idea being, if it
> ain't broke, don't fix it.
The problem with this reasoning is that *everyone's* body is 'broken' in
the sense that we all do get diseases and all of our body capacities
decline as we age.
Thus, to prevent or inhibit disease and the ravages of aging, you need
to do everything possible to combat those inexorable tendencies.
Yes, this first of all means eating the best possible diet that you can,
but once you have done that (and also are doing sufficient exercise)
taking supplements of various nutrients will additionally help.
Quote:
> So, which view is right? Advocates of supplements say that nutrient losses
> in
cooking.net">food preservation and preparation and in environmental pollution mean
> that you have to supplement.
If you do not desire optimallity but simply wish to be *normally*
healthy and declining with age, then you do not *have* to supplement.
Although there may be some basis to the argument that our current foods
and enviroment are more in need of supplementation than were foods grown
100 years ago.
However, the main reason for careful supplementation, in my view, is
that it can augment your 'normal' status by making you healthier and
possibly longer lived than you would normally be.
Quote:
> Purists say, if you do load up on nutrients without all the phytochemicals
> present in food, you will just put your body into imbalance.
There are toxic levels of certain nutrients which you should not go
beyond, and you do need to maintain certain balances, but the best
modern supplements all contain lots of phytochemicals.
In any case, a good diet should consist mostly of fruits and vegetables,
just so that you do get lots of phyto (plant) chemicals.
--Tom
Tom Matthews
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